Persons with disability (PWD) in the City of Naga or elsewhere in the region are the most neglected if not the most deprived in terms of privileges and benefits — even more neglected and more deprived than the senior citizens.
While the senior citizens can avail of benefits and privileges such as a twenty percent discount, which most of the time cannot be more than P30, on food orders in restaurants, on medicines purchased, on transportation fare, on health and hospital services and some other things, persons with disability have nothing of this kind since they do not have the identification card to prove that they are PWDs and that they deserve as much benefits as those given to senior citizens.
This quandary was given solution by the members of the Sanggunian Panlungsod of Naga when they approved on first reading the proposed resolution filed by Councilor Badette F. Roco which urged the Office of the City Mayor, the Office of the City Engineer, and the City Health Office or the offices of the barangay captain in their respective barangays “to scrupulously implement the provisions of Republic Act No. 9442 which amends R.A. No. 7277 otherwise known as the “Magna Carta for Persons with Disability and for Other Purposes”. The resolution particularly enjoins these local offices to issue the PWD identification cards to those qualified and residing in the barangays and set the distribution of these cards on December 15.
Among other things pushed adamantly by the resolution is the accessibility law as contained in Batas Pambansa Bilang 344 which provides that buildings should be constructed with accessibility structures and facilities for PWDs who wish to go to malls and department stores and restaurants. Even a cursory inspection on the way the pavements in front of these facilities in downtown Naga are constructed — how department stores constructed their front pavements with elevations that are much higher than those of their adjoining pavements — is a vivid example that the accessibility law has gone down the drain.
How much dereliction is there in the bestowal of privileges that the PWDs deserve by law! Indeed there is Republic Act No. 7277 as amended by Republic Act No. 9442 but the benefits and privileges enumerated therein cannot be enjoyed by PWDs unless they have an identification card to be issued by the identified local executives. The card then — the sooner given to them, the better is the thing that will make the PWDs avail of these privileges. What the members of the Sanggunian Panlungsod did to hasten the release of these cards is, indeed, commendable. They are quick to the aid of the marginalized, unlike some congressmen and governors who are quick to Malacanang’s gift bags.
But even without the card, the people with disability deserve respect. From all accounts, they are the most vilified and rejected by those who live in a competitive community. A case in point is the treatment PWDs get from the most despicable people in the world of traffic — the tricycle drivers. These drivers would drive at full speed and suddenly step on the brakes just before the pedestrian lane thereby sowing fear on the crossing pedestrian PWD that he would be run over. Anent to that, these drivers would curse and spat insulting words at the PWDs for the latter’s having delayed the flow of traffic. Such vilifications and uncharitable remarks are indeed covered by the Magna Carta. The question, however, is how these provisions of the law, other than the one on the issuance of identification card, will be implemented scrupulously, the key adverb that gives the law a bite as equally ferocious as its bark.
